Pitter-patter.
The gloomy sky suddenly began to rain. The droplets fell on Sasuke, slid down his cheeks, and mingled with the tears at the corners of his eyes.
Sasuke looked up at the somber night sky. "It's raining?"
The Tomoe Sharingan in his eye sockets had transformed into a Mangekyō Sharingan with a six-pointed star pattern. As his eyes changed, his entire presence began to shift as well.
The chilling aura that had made everyone uneasy gradually drew into the Mangekyō Sharingan he had just awakened.
Then,
his already exceptionally pure Yin Release Chakra rose to an even higher level of purity.
Yet neither the sudden surge in his Dojutsu nor the tremendous increase in his Chakra stirred his emotions very much.
He had only just awakened the radiant Mangekyō Sharingan, yet now his eyes seemed strangely vacant and dazed!
After a moment, he lowered his head and looked at Shinji's body lying in the muddy water.
He raised his hands and saw the striking bloodstains on them. "Did I kill him? What have I done?!"
He froze for a moment, then tried to use the rain to wash the blood from his hands. But no matter how hard he washed, the blood wouldn't come off.
Just then, he abruptly stopped and stared blankly around him. "N-no, this is wrong! I've been affected by a genjutsu!"
Clap, clap, clap.
A round of applause rang out from the woods nearby!
Then Shinji's real self, dressed in a Red Cloud outfit, emerged from the shadows.
As Shinji appeared, the scenery around them changed again. The rain and the blood vanished, and the forest returned to normal, as quiet as ever. Only the lingering heat and smoke in the air showed that a clash of ninjutsu had indeed taken place here.
"'A'?!"
Sasuke's